Incest and the Medieval Imagination.
- Author/Editor
- Archibald, Elizabeth.
- Title
- Incest and the Medieval Imagination.
- Published
- Archibald, Elizabeth. Incest and the Medieval Imagination. Oxford: Clarendon, 2001.
- Review
- Essentially, Archibald's study is a taxonomy of variations on the motif of incest in medieval literature, with attention to mother-son, father-daughter, and sibling sexual relations, contextualized with classical and biblical backgrounds, and complex cultural understandings (note the plural) of incest that broaden beyond the fundamental notion of "intercourse between blood relatives" (6) to include in-laws, god-parents, and other social and religious relations in medieval Christian communities. Gower has a minor but sustained presence throughout, including a possibly surprising appearance in Archibald’s conclusion. Archibald comments that Gower's "mixed views on incest laws" (25), found at the opening of Book 8 of the "Confessio Amantis," reflect--but notably modify--Augustine's idea that consanguinity in marriage was necessary to populate the earth soon after it was created and that instinctive revulsion successfully curbed it over time; Gower, Archibald tells us, accepts the initial necessity of familial incest, but papal prohibition is the curb for him. Archibald also observes that Gower's Dame Incest in "Mirour de l'Omme" entails a concept broader than "what we would expect" (39), emphasizing sex between monks and nuns as incestuous, along with sex within nuclear families. In a portion of her chapter on "The Classical Legacy," Archibald focuses on medieval adaptations of Ovidian narratives, mentioning Chaucer's possible "gibe" (80) at Gower in the "Man of Law's Prologue" and assessing Gower's "Tale of Canace and Machaire." She follows A. C. Spearing (1993) in finding the love between these siblings to be sympathetic but paradoxical--both natural and unnatural, and an example of the "dangerous power of love" (83). Modern readers, Archibald surmises, may see it as "a rare instance of sibling love presented in a fairly positive light, as a mutual and genuine passion, though also a fatal one" (83-84). For Archibald, Gower's account of Philomena "seems to be interested not so much in incest [even though Tereus is Philomena's brother-in-law] as in the fact that Tereus is already married, and that Philomena is a virgin" (90), emphases also evident in the "Ovide moralisé," Chaucer, and Lydgate. Following her own 1991 study of the story of Apollonius of Tyre, Archibald recounts that Gower's version of the story is "an exception" to the tradition in that he "emphasizes the strong attraction" between Apollonius and Thaise in their recognition scene, and that Gower "suggests that it would be quite natural for an unrecognized father and daughter to feel drawn to each other" (98-99), repeating this claim verbatim later in her study (186). Here, as in his account of Canace and Machaire, "Gower uses incest to represent love out of control" (80), detrimental to the common good but not unnatural or especially perverse, as it is often represented elsewhere. Indeed, at the close of her study, Archibald loosely aligns Gower's view of Apollonius's attraction to Thaise with the "immaculate 'incest' of Mary and her Father/Brother/Son in the salvation of mankind" (244). [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 44.1]
- Date
- 2001
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
Mirour de l'Omme
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations